


Two Queens

by phoenixflight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, M/M, POV Outsider, Stanford Era (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22155616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/pseuds/phoenixflight
Summary: The Stanford dorms shut down over the winter holidays, for maintenance and so the RAs could go home like everyone else without leaving kids unsupervised. Normally, that wasn’t a problem, except when you’d been planning to spend Christmas with your girlfriend’s family in Monterey, except she broke up with you two days before the start of break and you didn’t have a ticket back to St. Louis. "Hey, Sam," Zach said. "What are you doing for break?"Sam’s gargantuan shoulders hunched a little, although his face remained neutral. “Nowhere.”“Well you gotta go somewhere.”He shrugged. “I thought I’d get a motel room.”“A motel?” Zach echoed, a little surprised. Whatever else Sam was - cult escapee, international man of mystery, army brat like he claimed - it was obvious that he didn’t have money to spare. Aside from the scholarship he never bragged about, Zach had been living with the guy for four months, and Sam redefined frugal. Sam had redefined a lot of things for Zach like the definition of close-mouthed son of a bitch. “Hey. We should get a room together.”
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 36
Kudos: 335





	Two Queens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12 days of Wincestmas! Enjoy!

The Stanford dorms shut down over the winter holidays, for maintenance and so the RAs could go home like everyone else without leaving kids unsupervised. Normally, that wasn’t a problem, except when you’d been planning to spend Christmas with your girlfriend’s family in Monterey, except she broke up with you two days before the start of break and you didn’t have a ticket back to St. Louis. 

“Just call mom and dad,” Becky said. “They’ll buy you a plane ticket, it’s not a big deal.” 

Zach flopped back on his bed, phone against his ear. “No offense, but I’m not wild about spending Christmas with Grandma Bess around.” 

“If I can deal with her, so can you. Anyway, you don’t have anywhere to stay here. Where are you gonna sleep?” 

The door squeaked open, and Sam came in with his book bag over one shoulder. Zach waved at him distractedly, and said to Becky, “I dunno.” 

“Just come home,” Becky sighed. “For god’s sake, you stubborn asshole.” 

“Hey. Just for that, I’m hanging up on you,” he said, and snapped the phone shut. “Hey, Sam-man. How’d the final go?” 

Sam quirked an unreadable expression at the nickname, like he always did, and said, “Good, I think.”

“Great. That’s great.” Zach tapped the phone thoughtfully against his chin. “Hey, where are you going for break?” 

Sam’s gargantuan shoulders hunched a little, although his face remained neutral. “Nowhere.” 

“Well you gotta go somewhere.” 

He shrugged. “I thought I’d get a motel room.” 

“A motel?” Zach echoed, a little surprised. Whatever else Sam was - cult escapee, international man of mystery, army brat like he claimed - it was obvious that he didn’t have money to spare. Aside from the scholarship he never bragged about, Zach had been living with the guy for four months, and Sam redefined frugal. Sam had redefined a lot of things for Zach like the definition of  _ close-mouthed son of a bitch _ . “Hey. We should get a room together.” 

Sam blinked. “You’re not going home? I thought when Tina broke up with you…” 

“Nah.” Zach shook his head. “Too much of hassle at the last minute. And anyway, our grandmother moved in a couple of months ago and she’s a real piece of work. What do you think? We could split the cost.” When Sam hesitated, he continued, “It’s not like we don’t know we can live together. A hotel room’s gonna be like, twice the size of this dorm.”

“Yeah. But.” Sam ran a hand through his hair, which had been pretty shaggy when he arrived at school, and was getting longer. “I was planning to stay some place pretty cheap.” 

“That’s cool. No problem. I shouldn’t put too much on my emergency credit card anyway.”

Sam sort of wrinkled his nose. It was a face Zach had seen him make before, when someone said something like, “don’t worry about the stain! You can get a new jacket.” It wasn’t that weird to have an emergency credit card. No weirder than it was to have a giant-ass first aid backpack when the most dangerous thing you ever did was go to a party and leave before 11 o’clock. 

It took a little more cajoling but Sam eventually gave in, and found them a cheap motel out on the highway a couple of miles from town. The neon sign that said PALM OASIS MOTEL was missing a couple of letters, as was VACANCY. Zach wouldn’t have had the first idea about where to find a place like this but Sam seemed like he knew exactly where they were headed. 

“You been here before?” Zach asked. 

“No. But every town has places like this, out on the old state routes, from before the interstate was built.”

“Huh.” As always, Sam was a font of interesting trivia about inscrutable things and completely reticent about anything of personal significance. 

They got a double room and Sam dumped his duffel bag on the bed away from the door, and then glanced at the other bed, frowning. 

“You wanna switch?” Zach asked, catching the look as he hauled his suitcase into the room. 

“No, it’s fine.” 

Other than the cigarette burns on the sheets, it wasn’t that different from living in the dorms together. The beds were bigger, the bathroom was the same size, and the crappy coffee in the front office every morning wasn’t any worse than what they served in the dining hall. It was only for a couple of weeks, anyway. 

They went out to a bar the Friday before Christmas. It had been Sam’s suggestion, which surprised Zach, because while he knew Sam had a fake ID, and a good one too - he’d looked - Sam wasn’t one for partying. It was kind of a rough place too, not one of the regular college circuit, off the main drag. Still, it was thronged with a holiday crowd - people desperate to get away from their families, people with no families to go to, and truckers away from their families for too long - all rubbing shoulders between the pool tables and the bar stools. Zach got the first round of drinks, and Sam nodded to the pool tables. “I think I’m gonna go a couple of games. Wanna play?” 

“What, so you can wipe the floor with my ass?” Zach had seen Sam handle a cue, at a frat party where Sam had looked both bored and sober sinking balls into pockets like a machine. 

“Nah, come on. I promise I’ll go easy.” Sam gave him that puppy dog look that got girls and professors fawning over Sam all the time. Zach sighed, but let no one say that Zach Warren was not a good sport. 

Sam lost three times in a row. 

“Man, you’ve gotta get your head together,” Zach said, slapping him on the back and putting up his cue. “It’s been fun but I’m gonna get another drink. You want anything?”

Sam shook his head and Zach left him standing by the tables with his shoulders sort of hunched. At the bar, Zach ordered a gin and tonic, and got distracted by an older brunette with a Christmas sweater and a Valley Girls accent. He ended up talking to her for twenty minutes or so - hey, he was newly single and she was finalizing a separation, they had common ground - when he heard someone swearing over the noise of the crowd. 

Twisting on the bar stool, he looked over to see Sam standing by the pool tables with two very pissed looking office types, one of whom was swearing loudly, and leaning in Sam’s face. Or trying to, anyway. Sam had about six inches on the guy, and was using every bit of it, not slouching at all, face impassive. 

“I gotta go,” Zach muttered to the brunette divorcee, and started toward them. Violence looked imminent at any moment. And then the one office guy shook his head and backed up, spitting some final comment at Sam before stalking away. Sam picked up a stack of bills off the felt of the table and rifled through them, pool cue tucked in the crook of his arm. 

Zach slid up beside him. “Dude, are you hustling pool?” 

“Could you say that any louder?” Sam hissed, and Zach backed up a step. He didn’t normally see Sam look really annoyed about anything, except Professor Martin’s lectures, but here, he seemed different. Larger than life somehow, and older, like he belonged with these rough drinkers and barflies. Zach swore Sam had grown in the last few months since they’d met. 

“Jeez. Ok. It’s just, like. I thought that was something people only did in the movies.”

Sam’s mouth quirked and for a moment, Zach thought he’d said something to make Sam’s mood worse, but then Sam smiled and flashed the bills at him before tucking them into his pocket. “It’s a dying art.” 

“Sure,” Zach blinked. “So you done, or what?”

“Maybe just one more game. You grab a table.” 

Zach had turned away when he heard an unfamiliar voice behind him say, “Hey, pretty boy, you want a game?” It was the hottest fucking guy Zach had ever seen, smirking at Sam and grabbing a pool cue. “You can break.” 

The guy wore a leather jacket and heavy boots, looked like one of the truckers, maybe, except for how he also looked like a male model. Green eyes, dirty blond hair, mouth like a girl’s. Zach didn’t even swing that way but he wouldn’t say no to taking those lips for a test drive. Sam apparently felt the same way, because he was gaping at the man like an idiot. The man just quirked his eyebrows, and gestured at the table. 

“What... I mean. What are you…” Sam stammered. 

“You gonna break or not?” The guy pulled out a battered leather wallet and dropped a couple of fifties onto the table. He didn’t really look like the kind who could afford to lose it, but maybe he was confident of winning. The way Sam was acting, maybe he was right. Had someone slipped Sam something? 

Setting his drink down, Zach took two steps back toward the pool table, and the guy turned to him. “Who’s this?” he asked, as if Zach was the stranger. 

Sam just blinked sort of dazedly and said, “This is my roommate, Zach.”

The man nodded a greeting, but didn’t offer his own name. His attention slid off Zach like Zach was a cardboard cutout, watching Sam break the rack. He was totally checking out Sam’s ass.

“So are you from around here?” Zach asked, a little over-loudly. 

The guy’s gaze barely flickered toward him. “Nah. Visiting family in the area,” he added after a moment. Then he was stepping up to the table to take aim at the striped balls. 

“Sam,” Zach whispered, but Sam shook his head, eyes locked on the guy as he bent over the table, sinking four in a row before missing. 

They only traded off twice more before Sam was swearing as he scratched the cue ball. The guy smirked at him, filthy, and finished the table. Sam didn’t even watch as the guy sank the 8-ball, just put away his cue. It was the weirdest game of competitive billiards Zach had ever seen. 

“Good game, college boy,” the guy said, scooping the money up off the table without counting it. “Another?” 

“Can I talk to you?” Sam said, terse. 

“Is that not what you’re doing?” 

“Not here.” Sam jerked his head at the back of the bar. 

“Are you sure that’s…” Zach began, but Sam cut him off. He had that looming, dangerous look again, and Zach thought he probably wasn’t in any actually danger. Still, he watched closely as the two of them disappeared down the dim hallway to the bathrooms, Sam hauling the other guy along by his elbow. 

And okay, Zach wasn’t a shitty person or a creep, honest, but he’d never been more curious about anyone in his life. Or at least since Marsha Parrington offered to show him her boobs in seventh grade. And he was honestly a little worried about Sam, despite the guy’s height and crazy muscles. So he followed them. 

At least they didn’t actually go into the men’s room. Eavesdropping on the urinals was not something Zach wanted to add to his list of holiday activities. They went out the service door at the end of the hall that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. It was more than a little humiliating to stand with his ear against the cold metal, straining for the sounds of their voices. Zach tried not to feel judged by everyone glancing at him as they went in and out of the bathrooms. 

“...we can’t just… it’s not…” 

“It’s not what, Sammy? Seems simple enough to me.” Sam never let anyone call him Sammy, and Zach hadn’t heard the two of them exchange names at all. Zach frowned, wishing he hadn’t had that third drink, that he was just a little more sober. 

“It’s not. It’s never been simple, Dean.” And that confirmed it, because the other guy had definitely never introduced himself. 

The guy - Dean - let out a gusty breath. “You know, you can just tell me.” There was something important going on here, floating just outside of Zach’s comprehension. It felt like when he’d ended up accidentally enrolled in a 401 level biology class last semester. “If you’ve changed your mind… or, or met someone else. You can just say, Sammy.”

“No, Dean! It’s… it’s not that. I  _ do  _ want… It’s just… why are you here?” 

“To see my baby boy for Christmas,” Dean said, and that should have made it clearer but somehow it didn’t - they were, what? Boyfriends? Why had Sam never mentioned him? Not once? “Something wrong with that?” Dean rumbled. 

“I… no. Course not. I’m just. Surprised,” Sam said softly. 

“Yeah, well. Fuck you,” Dean sighed, and Zach was confused all over again. “If you don’t want me here, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Dean! Dean, no. Stay. God, stay, you don’t know how much… how much I wanted… I’m glad you’re here.” His voice dropped even further and Zach strained to hear him. “Want you so bad.” 

There was the wet sound of kissing and Zach thought it was definitely time to leave but he didn’t.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Dean murmured, “You gonna show me your dorm room, Sammy?”

“Dorms are closed,” Sam said, sounding a little out of breath. 

“What? Where the hell are people supposed to go?” 

“Home.” There was a bitter note in Sam’s voice and Zach could picture the wry set of his mouth. 

“That’s some bullshit. How much are you paying for this school again?” 

“Nothing, Dean,” Sam said, “It’s a full ride.” 

“Yeah well. You got a room somewhere?” Sam must have nodded because Dean continued, “Right. The car’s parked around the corner if you’re ready to get out of here.” 

“Uh. We’re uh. Zach and I are sharing a room.” 

There was a short silence, and then Dean said, “Well, you got a sock-on-the-doorknob system?” 

“Dean!” They scuffled faintly. 

“Kidding! I can get us a room, sheesh. Let’s go.” 

“I gotta let him know where I’m going.” 

“What is he, your nanny?” 

“No, he’s my friend,” Sam said fiercely, and for some reason it made Zach feel fond and defensive of his weirdo Winchester. He hightailed it down the hall and into the men’s room just as the service door opened again. When Zach went back to the main room, Sam was craning around, looking for him, Dean at his shoulder. 

“Hey, there you are. Um. Me and -” he waved a hand. “We’re gonna…” 

Zach waited for him to finish that sentence but he didn’t. “It’s okay. You can say fuck. We’re in California, you know.” 

Sam blushed to the roots of his hair and Dean grinned such a lascivious and fake smile that Zach wanted to go wash his hands. Sam could do better, really. “Don’t wait up,” Sam said, ducking his head. 

They went out to the parking lot and Zach poked his head around the corner in time to see Sam push Dean up against the side of a classic car and kiss him. 

Zach didn’t see Sam again for the rest of break, although the big black car was parked in the motel lot for the full two weeks, and Sam responded  _ no  _ when Zach texted him  _ have you been abducted into sex slavery?  _

Afterward, Sam tried to give Zach a wad of cash - “I promised to pay for half the room, it’s not fair of me to flake on you.” 

Zach waved him off. “No way. You barely used it. I’m not taking your money, dude.” 

Sam got this stubborn set to his chin, so Zach scooted away preemptively. “Not taking it! Not even if you shove it down my throat! I’ll hack it up on your pillow while you’re gone like a cat.” 

“Gross, dude,” Sam said, but at least he was smiling, rolling his eyes and putting the money away. “Thanks.”

“No worries. Hey, uh, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but… who was he?” 

Sam froze, face pale and guilty. 

“I’m just saying, if you had a… a boyfriend or something. I wouldn’t judge.”

“He’s not - it’s complicated.” 

Zach shrugged. “Sure dude. Just thought you should know, you don’t have to hide. Especially since you’re kind of obvious.” 

“Uh. Right.” Sam swallowed. “Obvious, huh?” 

“Yeah, dude,” Zach laughed. “Hella obvious.” 

Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I guess we’re out of practice,” Sam said, a little sheepishly, as if that answered any of Zach’s questions. Zach sighed and chalked it up to one more mystery about Sam Winchester. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!


End file.
